


Irregular: Experiment 10

by zuli



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-10
Updated: 2018-10-12
Packaged: 2019-07-29 01:25:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16253795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zuli/pseuds/zuli
Summary: They found their home in the underground, the constituency known as NCT, a group of top criminals working as one ever-growing unit outside the reign of the law.Through one failed mission, three of their agents are captured, and a rescue team is deployed before the facility can begin its ‘classified experimentation’ upon the three prisoners.However, by the time the rescue party arrives, Experiment 10 is already underway, and NCT is faced with the true difficulties of the ‘Irregular.’





	1. The Rescue

-Doyoung-

In a running jump, Jaehyun burst through the window, showering a tinkling rain of glass across the white linoleum hallway. Johnny and Doyoung stepped through the ragged picture frame of resilient glass left in the window pane. Doyoung’s black boots crunched on the broken glass, and he held out a hand to Jaehyun, who looked back at him with a smile despite the red ribbons of blood welling on his fair skin.   
“We’re in,” he mouthed, looking between the other two intruders.   
They started down the hall in a slow moving pod. They’d been carefully planning the infiltration for weeks, or, Doyoung had been planning it for weeks, until they found out there was a ticking time bomb hanging in threat above their target’s heads, and they would have to move quickly in order to save them.   
Their goal of the night: the three newest experiments of the facility, experiments 8, 9 and 10, who were supposedly scheduled for strings of classified experiments over the next few days. They hadn’t been able to access information on the experiments, but Doyoung didn’t want them to find out through experience.   
Johnny skillfully input a code into a locked stainless steel door, and they slipped like shadows into a dark hallway. It had the feeling of a zoo or aquarium after hours; with dim colored lights lining either side of the walkway. The hall was comprised of large boxes, with one wall of glass for the scientists to observe the specimen at all hours. Each box had a single locked door at the back, where food could be delivered. The walls and floor were all stark white, as well as the bed, the toilet, and the sink.   
Doyoung peered in at one sleeping form, who appeared to be nothing more than a large bearded man.   
“Over here,” Jaehyun hissed.   
Doyoung walked past the next few tanks, coming to a stop by one marked “8”. In it, the familiar figure of Ten lay on the bed, fully clothed in white and sleeping on top of the bedsheets. From the outside, it looked like no harm had been done to him yet.   
Johnny ushered them further down the hall, to the tank marked “9,” which held a surprised looking Taeyong. Taeyong waved to them, his eyes fearful. Doyoung glanced at the final cell in the line, knowing what it must contain. They moved to observe experiment 10, whose shivering figure, even with his back turned to them, made Doyoung heart skip. Dark roots were showing between the faded orange hair, and Jungwoo’s slender frame was recognizable anywhere.   
“If we go through this door, we can get to the passage on the other side of the cells. That way we can access the feeding doors,” Johnny explained in a hushed town, tapping in another code to the single white door at the end of the corridor.   
With their goal in sight, and a final glance at Taeyong pressed against the soundproof glass to watch them, the three hurried into yet another clean white passage.   
“There will be a security camera ahead,” Jaehyun warned. Doyoung modded, pulling up the hood of his black sweatshirt.   
They turned their faces away from the glaring red eye of the camera, slipping into the narrow hallway behind the cells.   
Johnny opened the door to cell 10 first, and Jaehyun slipped inside. From the doorway, Doyoung saw Jungwoo’s head whip up.   
Johnny opened Taeyong’s door, and Taeyong stumbled out, briefly hugging Doyoung with feeble arms.   
Then there was a scream.   
Doyoung backtracked the few steps to Jungwoo’s cell, where the boy was cowering in fear, Jaehyun gripping his wrists and shouting “Jungwoo it’s me! It’s me!”   
Taeyong and Doyoung rushed into the room, and Taeyong started speaking quickly to Jungwoo. Jungwoo wailed, and Doyoung noticed tears streaming down his face.   
Jungwoo’s eyes fell on Doyoung, and all at once, recognition washed over him.   
“Doyoung!” He gasped. He pulled his wrists from the startled Jaehyun’s grip and clambered to his feet. His body thudded into Doyoung’s like a bullet, his arms wrapping around him in a vice grip, his body shaking with tears.   
Doyoung hugged him tightly, exchanging a look of confusion with Jaehyun. 

A siren blared. The white walls were bathed with red light. Jungwoo, still in Doyoung’s grip, whimpered and buried his face in Doyoung’s chest.   
Jaehyun pulled Taeyong’s arm and lead him back into the hallway.   
“Come on Jungwoo, we have to go,” Doyoung said urgently. He pulled himself out of Jungwoo’s arms, letting the boy hold onto his hands instead. He held them as if they were a lifeline, as if he knew nothing else besides Doyoung’s trembling fingers.   
Johnny was pulling Ten out of the final cell. “I fucked up the code,” he shouted over the siren.   
“We have to go now or they’ll find us here and throw us in a cell too.”  
They moved at a painfully slow pace, held up by Ten’s injured leg and Jungwoo’s seemingly aggressive state of confusion. If Doyoung thought he was strong enough, he would have picked him up and carried him out of here, but he was confined to almost dragging him, as he babbled a stream of phrases mostly consisting of “where are we?” “Who are they?” And “I can’t see” repeated over and over in slightly different ways.   
There were shouts from all around the facility, and echoing stampedes of footsteps.   
Jaehyun and Taeyong were already climbing out of the broken window when the slower four ran up. Johnny scooped the much smaller Ten up in his arms and carried him over the broken glass so his bare feet wouldn’t be lacerated, and turned back to Doyoung.   
Johnny grabbed Jungwoo’s feet, and Doyoung held him under the armpits and together they lifted him off the ground just as a group of people, some wearing lab coats or scrubs, others wearing casual clothes, appeared from a door further up the hall.   
Jaehyun started the car with a rev of the engine, and Doyoung and Johnny moved as quickly as they could to get out of the window. Doyoung felt a spike of glass rip through his pants and slice a size able gash on his calf, and he grunted as they pushed Jungwoo into the back of the car. Doyoung clambered in after him, and with the door of the car still open, they sped away in a screech if tires and a pungent smell of burning rubber.


	2. The Return

Doyoung held a hand over the wound on his calf, trying to keep the majority of the blood off the floor of the car. He watched hazily as Johnny, in the front seat, turned as much of his body as he could to face Ten in the middle row beside Taeyong. Ten and Johnny had been dating for almost four years now, two years before they even formed the alliance of criminals they called NCT. Ten was one of the original members, along with Doyoung, Taeyong, Jaehyun, and Mark, who hadn’t come along for this mission. Ten was the one who introduced the others to Johnny, and eventually convinced them to add him to the team. Jungwoo was one of the newest additions to the group, and hopefully, he wouldn’t be the first one to leave.  
“They took Jungwoo away the third day we were there. We’ve been separated the whole time, so I had no idea anything of consequence had happened to him,” Taeyong explained. Jaehyun glanced into the rearview mirror and met Doyoung’s eyes. The previously roudy Jungwoo was now almost silent, feebly gripping Doyoung’s arm with one hand and whimpering occasionally.   
“We’ll have to treat him as soon as we get back. Hopefully, since we got him out before the experiments were finished, we’ll be able to reverse the negative effects.”  
“We don’t know that Doyoung,” Jaehyun said solemnly from the front of the car. “We don’t know if we got him out before they were finished.”

The three arrived at their headquarters just after three in the morning. The building was located on the outskirts of one of the many sub-cities of the main city, all of which were just as vibrant with colors and people, just as crowded with shops and neon lights, and just as tumultuous. It was well known that the government and the many circles of organized crime worked just below the surface level in this disjointed city, with some cities falling more under the control of the government, some falling more under control of the criminals. This particular area was ruled predominantly by a large family of gamblers, giving criminals such as NCT a place where they could exist in some level of safety.  
The headquarters was an old love hotel, all pink and red lights and heart-shaped beds. It was a great place for them, much better than the abandoned church they had lived in when Doyoung first joined.  
Jeno rushed up to meet the car as they pulled up, bundled in a warm blue sweater and carrying an armful of blankets. “Did you get them?” he asked in excitement. His face broke into a smile as Taeyong climbed out of the car, answering his question. “I’ll tell Kun you’re back!”  
Doyoung helped Jungwoo climb out of the back seat as Jeno rushed away, and the others started moving towards the front doors.   
“I can’t see Doyoung,” Jungwoo said in his soft voice.  
“What do you mean you can’t see?” Doyoung asked, leaning closer to him in order to hear. Jungwoo shook his head, blinking his eyes repeatedly.  
“I can’t make my eyes focus. I feel like I’m...like I’m drunk.”  
Doyoung pursed his lips in a way that someone who knew him would read as stoic concern. He didn’t want to face the fact that something was very wrong with Jungwoo, even though he knew that that was very likely to be true.   
Kun appeared around the car, grabbing one of Jungwoo’s arms and beginning to pull him towards the building. Doyoung helped him, holding tight to Jungwoo’s other arm.  
“Jaehyun told me as much as I’m sure any of you know. I don’t know if we’re going to be able to do anything for him ourselves. If they messed with him brain, I don’t know what to do.”  
Doyoung nodded worriedly, shaking at the thoughts he’d already been mulling over being expressed verbally. Kun was the nurse of the group, as he had been through a few years of medical training before he decided he didn’t want to become a doctor. Doyoung often wondered what it had been that led him from a path of comfort and respectability to one of crime and outcast, but he had never asked, and Kun rarely brought it up.   
Jungwoo looked around with flickering eyes at the lobby as they entered. “Where are we?” he asked, leaning his head toward Doyoung.   
Kun frowned slightly.  
“This is where we live, Jungwoo,” Doyoung replied softly.   
They brought Jungwoo to one of the first floor rooms, where Kun kept all of his materials. Doyoung helped him onto the bed and stood beside him as Kun pulled out everything he needed to check his vitals.  
“We live here?” Jungwoo asked.   
“Yes. Don’t you remember at all?”   
Jungwoo stared up at the ceiling, his eyes filling with tears. “I don’t know why you’re saying that to me Doyoung. I can’t remember this place at all.”  
Kun checked his heart, and Jungwoo jumped at the touch of the stethoscope.  
“Jungwoo,” Doyoung said, patting his hand, apprehension in his stomach. “Do you know who he is?”  
Jungwoo looked up at Kun, squinting slightly. “A doctor?” he asked, his voice small. Kun’s eyes widened at the answer. The two had known each other before they had joined NCT, before Jungwoo had ever met Doyoung. If he knew anyone, he should know Kun.   
“He isn’t a doctor?” Jungwoo asked innocently in response to the heavy silence in the room.  
The door opened, and Jeno’s curious face appeared through the crack. Doyoung quickly crossed the room and nudged Jeno, following him out of the room and closing the door behind him.  
“Is he okay?” Jeno asked, frightened by Doyoung’s action.  
“He...I don’t think he should see anyone right now. He can’t remember us.”  
Jeno blinked. “He can’t remember us?”  
“Something happened to him in the facility. He was the first one to get experimented on. We don’t really know what’s wrong with him but he doesn’t seem to recognize people or places that he should.”  
Jeno pouted in sorrowful concern, glancing back at the door to the room.  
“Could you tell the others not to visit him for a while. I think seeing so many unfamiliar people is stressful for him right now.”  
Jeno nodded and scampered away. Doyoung sighed. It felt strange to tell his friends not to come to check on someone they cared about, and he didn’t know how to explain to them that Jungwoo still remembered who he was.  
Kun quietly left the room a few minutes later, and Doyoung quickly stood up from the chair he had been sitting in.  
“His vitals all seem relatively normal. His heart is beating quite quickly, and his eyes won’t focus, but I don’t think that’s permanent,” Kun explained. “But more concerningly, I showed him pictures of all of us, and he claimed he’s never seen any of them before, besides you.”  
“I’m the only one?” Doyoung asked incredulously. He and Jungwoo hadn’t been that close, not compared to his relationship with Kun or Lucas. He liked Jungwoo a lot, and they got along well, but he couldn’t think why he would be the only person he remembered out of all eighteen of them. “He didn’t recognize the others as we were escaping, but he seemed incredibly panicked at the time, and I thought maybe with all the confusion and his experience with the scientists, he might just be blind to what was happening around him. I hoped that once he calmed down…”  
“I don’t think he knows us. I asked if he could tell me basic things, like what his room looked like, where he was from, what his favorite food was, stuff like that. He seemed to know most things directly related to him, but he didn’t remember what his room here looked like, or what he does for a living or anything that happened to him in the facility.” Kun chewed his lip. “Honestly Doyoung, I don’t know if the memory loss was intentional or if it was a side effect of something else they were trying to do to him, but we probably can’t give him any information about us or what we’re doing until we have figured out exactly what they did to him.”  
Doyoung nodded. “It’s not like he can really do anything for us right now. He’s not like...going to die or anything?”  
Kun shrugged. “Physically, there’s nothing wrong. Unless there’s some computer ship in him somewhere set to kill him, he’ll be fine.”  
Doyoung nodded. “Should I take him to his room?”  
Kun nodded. “He should probably try to sleep. He probably went through a hard time in there.”  
They re-entered the room together, and Doyoung once again took Jungwoo’s arm and helped him out of the room. He felt a heavy rock of guilt in his stomach. By being so strangely singled out he felt like he was somehow responsible for the loss of his memory, even though he knew that couldn’t be true. He also wondered what the reason for him being the only person in Jungwoo’s memory was, if he was in any sort of danger, or if it was accidental.   
Whatever the answers were, NCT now had a monumental puzzle before them. One of their own was now essentially a stranger, and it was uncertain if he would even be able to perform his job anymore, not to mention that he could somehow be delivering information to the government from the inside, or could be brainwashed to kill them all. He was suddenly a liability, and anyway Doyoung thought about it, he couldn’t see a happy end for Jungwoo.


	3. Jungwoo's Room

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tbh i haven't liked how my writing has turned out these past few chapters. It'll be better from now on !

Doyoung opened the door to Jungwoo’s room. Just like all of their rooms, he had a broad heart shaped bed with silky red sheets and an elegant but small en suite. His room was decorated with an eclectic collection of string lights, giving the whole space a soft glow. He had a vase of dried roses on the table at the side of the room, and a glossy poster of a chinese romance film Doyoung had never seen hung on the wall opposite the bed. The entire room was similar to its inhabitant; elegant, melancholy, and complicated to understand.  
Jungwoo looked around slowly, then glanced at Doyoung. 

“It’s your room,” Doyoung confirmed with a nod. Jungwoo slowly approached the bed and ran his fingers across the sheets, as if trying to read the threads like braille. He sniffed and turned around. 

“I want to change out of these clothes,” he said. Doyoung nodded, and started to turn and go. “Can you stay?” Doyoung stopped, looking at the boy standing like an island in the room he no longer remembered. His pretty brown eyes pleaded with a misty sort of magnetism, the very same that had enchanted information out of even the tightest-lipped men. 

Doyoung nodded, and sat awkwardly in the red velvet armchair close to the door. 

Jungwoo crossed to the closet and began slowly looking through the clothes there. Doyoung watched as he did this, wondering at the old Jungwoo he had never fully known. He remembered his first impression of him, so giggly and shy, seemingly nowhere near as smart as he was. He hadn’t known what to think of him for a while, especially when he had returned home one night early in the morning and seen Jungwoo tenderly kissing Lucas outside the hotel, met his glimmering eyes in the dark as the unknowing Lucas remained oblivious to the shadow that was Doyoung. That was the first time he had really felt he understood what Jungwoo did, looking into the dark chocolate of his eyes, seen the fluidity of his body as it was pressed against another man. 

He had thought then that maybe there would be another couple among them, like Johnny and Ten, or Jaehyun and Taeyong, who had been together secretly on and off since soon after they first met. Secretly, of course, in the way that everyone knew about it, but no one ever mentioned it. 

Everyone had put their money on Jungwoo getting together with someone as soon as he moved into the hotel. Especially with the knowledge that he had made his way through life thus far by seducing countless men and scamming their fortunes out of them with his innocent smile. 

But it seemed Jungwoo and Lucas had never gotten together officially. Doyoung was certain they had slept together, and he was almost as certain that there were at least three other people Jungwoo had slept with here, though he pretended he couldn’t pick up on the subtle changes between the new member and the presumed partners. Not that it mattered now. Jungwoo wouldn’t even remember them. 

Jungwoo pulled out a light blue sweatshirt and began to take off the simple white clothes from the lab. Doyoung looked down at his fingers, playing with his fingernails. He tried not to blush from thinking so hard about not looking over there, but when Jungwoo crossed to stand beside him, he was sure his cheeks were warmer than they should have been.  
“Can we talk a little bit?” Jungwoo asked. 

Doyoung nodded, and followed Jungwoo to the bed. They sat facing each other, and Doyoung could see Jungwoo’s frequent glances around them, as if he forgot and remembered periodically that he was in a room that supposedly was his. 

“Can you talk about what you remember from the experiments? From the facility? From before?” Doyoung asked when Jungwoo offered no conversation. 

“I'm really confused,” Jungwoo said finally. “In my mind, I woke up in that white room to a bunch of people in lab coats observing me through glass. They would come in every day to give me a shot of something and drag me away to other rooms...but everything after the shot gets blurry. I can only remember faint sounds and images. I know it was scary, and there was a lot of stuff that hurt. A lot. Before the lab...I remember my mom. I remember leaving home. I remember...men. A lot of men. Men always liked me. When I spoke to them I could make them do what I want. Some of them would give me money. So I would make them give me money. I started sleeping with them, and I could get even more money. I remember…” he frowned, as if something were hurting him. “I don’t remember leaving my city. But I know I somehow came here. I remember you always avoiding my eyes. I don’t remember meeting you, I just remember you standing in a lot of rooms and trying not to look at me. I remember talking to you about my mom, and about your brother. We found out we had the same nickname in highschool. When I got sick you went to the store to get medicine for me.”

Doyoung blinked. He remembered those things too, but he also remembered everyone else in the stories; Kun making soup everyday, Taeyong bringing in piles of extra pillows to make him comfortable, Mark and Jungwoo joking about their favorite flavored milk, Jungwoo making Chenle and Jisung laugh with the toys they had. If Jungwoo remembered the few conversations they had shared so specifically, why didn’t he remember all of those other moments? 

“I’m not...someone important to you, am I?” Jungwoo asked, navigating the words carefully. His voice was so soft Doyoung almost wondered if he had even heard it. 

He searched for the right words, finding it hard to think with those sad eyes trained on him. 

“We...weren’t very close. I think you’re very nice, and I like you a lot, I just don’t know you that well. I’m mostly confused that, of all the people here, you remember me. You were much closer with a lot of other people. We hadn’t really connected yet.” Doyoung almost felt bad about what he said as he saw Jungwoo’s face fall.

“I believe you, I just...from my perspective, you’re the only person I’ve known since I came to this city. Every night in the facility I thought of you. I knew you were going to come save me.” 

Doyoung’s heart tightened hearing him say that. He had always liked taking care of people, and hearing that Jungwoo had felt he relied so heavily on Doyoung during such a frightening time made him want to hug him.

“Don’t worry Jungwoo. We’re going to help you through this. Even if you don’t remember them right now, the others love you, and they’ll all help you.” Jungwoo nodded slowly. “You should try to sleep. You’ve been through a lot.”

Jungwoo nodded again. “Okay.”

Doyoung stood and Jungwoo crawled under the blankets, his hair flopping across the pillow. 

Doyoung reached out to flip the lightswitch by the door, but Jungwoo’s urgent voice stopped him. “Don’t turn them off. I’m afraid I’ll have nightmares.”

Doyoung dropped his hand. “I hope not. Sleep well.” Jungwoo smiled, and Doyoung left the room quietly.


	4. The Meeting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I've been updating it so much...I usually try not to post twice in a day, but I finished the chapter and decided I might as well.

The seventeen members of NCT sat in their discussion room, one of the penthouse suites on the top floor of the hotel. Jungwoo had been reintroduced to the team, looking overwhelmed at the sudden delivery of so many names. They had asked him to sit outside after that, since they still didn’t know if the government could learn information through him in some way.

“We’re dealing with something very difficult today,” Taeyong began. “And something we’ve never had to deal with before. Honestly, I have no idea what to do.”

“We have to think like enemy,” Jaehyun offered. “What would they want from someone within our ranks? What could they do to us if they had an inside man?”

Doyoung spoke up. “I think the thing we have the most reason to be worried about is information collection. We’ve seen for ourselves the kind of technology the government has access to in regards to the human brain. I’m sure they could have found a way to read his thoughts, maybe in the way that they can receive any information he learns, hence them wiping his memory of us.”

“Most of us,” Renjun said quietly. Doyoung looked down at the floor guiltily.

“He’s right,” Johnny said quickly. “And we have to consider if he can even remember what his job used to be. Can he still collect information for us?”

“He can,” Doyoung said firmly. The other turned to look at him, and he blushed. “I mean, he said last night that he remembers when he used to sleep with all those men to blackmail them and stuff, before we recruited him.”

“That may be true, but even if he still can work with us, do we want the government to also be able to access the information he’s collecting that’s meant to be for our use?” Yuta asked.

“There has to be some way we can use it to our advantage. Even if the government has any access to his thoughts, and that’s only assuming they successfully finished whatever procedure they were putting him through, we must be able to twist that to our advantage.” Doyoung glanced at Ten, knowing that this suggestion would lead to reopening the pandora’s box that he and the others of the original five had discovered, and he wasn’t sure they were ready for that.

Not realizing what Ten had been hinting at, Winwin cut in. “Will he even want to work with us now that he doesn’t know us?”

“Losing some of his memory doesn’t change the fact that he turned his back on the law. He came here for the same reasons as the rest of us. He has nowhere else to go, no other avenue in society,” Kun said. 

“I think for now,” Jaehyun said. “As long as we are all in agreement, we should just try to integrate him back into our group as much as we can socially, and just not let him see anything we don’t want the government to see. In the meantime, we can try to come up with some experiments to see if we can deduce what exactly they are getting out of what they did to him, if anything. Everyone okay with that?” There was general nodding, and after looking around the room, Jaehyun looked to Doyoung. “Want to bring him in?”

Doyoung stood and opened the door to the hallway. Jungwoo sat on a chair part way down the hall, quite obviously nervous. He looked up at Doyoung when he heard the door open and stood up quickly. Doyoung smiled, doing his best to help ease the boy’s nerves.

Jungwoo slid into the room, looking around apprehensively. Doyoung pulled him over to where he had just been sitting, making room for him to sit beside him on the couch. Doyoung could feel Jungwoo’s light grip on his arm as they sat, and he patted his leg reassuringly.

Jaehyun smiled at Jungwoo. “You do want to stay with us, right Jungwoo?”

Jungwoo hesitated, then nodded. 

“We decided that, for the time being, we will be keeping most important information confidential from you, just in case the government is collecting data through your person. We’re going to try to figure out what exactly they can use you for, and once we know, we can all go back to normal. If we can find a way to reverse the process, we will, but at the very least, you can reacquaint yourself with everyone naturally, as you did when you first came here with Kun and Lucas. And if you are having any sort of issue, keep us informed.”

Jungwoo had been nodding slowly the whole time. “Thank you everyone for your kindness. I am sorry if my not knowing you makes you uncomfortable or sad, but I am excited to meet you all again.” He offered a rather sad looking smile. 

“Okay, that’s all for today,” Taeyong announced. 

Everyone began to stand, and Jaehyun exchanged a glance with Doyoung. Doyoung nodded slightly, and turned to Jungwoo. 

“You feel okay?”

“Yeah. Weird, but okay. Do you think what I said was okay?”

“Yes. I’m sure everyone appreciated it.”

Kun approached with a smile, Chenle trailing behind him. “Come on Jungwoo, we can get some lunch.” 

Jungwoo nodded and glanced at Doyoung. “Will you come?”

Doyoung looked to where Ten and Jaehyun were talking. “Another time. Have fun.” He split from them and crossed the room, sitting on the edge of couch seat beside Jaehyun. Ten leaned over the back of the couch, his hands clasped and his face serious.

“Before we even discuss it, absolutely not,” Doyoung said, not bothering to ask what they had been talking about. He didn’t want to revisit his old fight with Ten, but it seemed it was going to happen, and he wanted to be clear in his opposition.

“But what if we can help him Doyoung. Before we were just fucking around, but this is completely different,” Ten protested, his voice strong but still hushed due to the members still trickling out. 

“You never operated it, Ten. I did. The thing is a nightmare. We only know as much about it as we would the tip of an iceberg. We could easily destroy him. We can’t risk it.”

“I have to admit, it does seem like we already have the perfect tool to combat these mind games,” Jaehyun said. “I agree we shouldn’t just dive in, but maybe if we tried it out on some more people, we could figure out how to use it better.”

“The human brain is complicated in ways that we will never be able to understand. We have no idea what they did to him in the labs. Maybe, if we knew his exact problem, maybe if he were in mortal danger, maybe I would agree to do it, but as it is, I won’t. I’m not doing it.”

Jaehyun and Ten glanced at each other in a way that Doyoung knew meant they both had more they wanted to say, but were afraid to.

“I mean, if you are so strongly opposed to it, I guess we have no choice.”

Ten crossed his arms and looked away. 

“If you had experienced it, you’d be this opposed to it too,” Doyoung growled. He stood and walked out of the room, unphased by the door slamming loudly behind him.


End file.
